This is all conjecture & political stupidity. the bigger problem is here in the US, not in Raska-Prizren. Some have even mentioned that they might shut down the Midwest Metropolitanate. There have been much bigger discussions about the situation here than there. Plus many other things i'd rather not say publicly .

I'm not too keen on B92 news, but I have heard talk about the Serbian Sinod being split between Russian and Constantinople lines. May mean absolutely nothing.

Also, I am glad that the article gave props to the Serbian Orthodox Church with the handling of the gay parade in Belgrade. They handled themselves wonderfully. Representing Christian values, precepts, and support of the family structure, while did not support violence as a means to get a message across.

« Last Edit: October 27, 2010, 04:22:12 PM by Lichnidos »

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"Men do not differ much about what things they will call evils; they differ enormously about what evils they will call excusable." - G.K. Chesterton

The Path Of Orthodoxy deals with serbian church news and events In english and serbian Cyrillic, when you click the link, scroll a little down and click the news papers that are displayed with dates to read them ...http://www.serborth.org/path.html

Hope this Helps..... Have to mention,that one of the papers mentions The midwest and how it was divided....

Belgrade - The disgraced Serbian Orthodox Bishop Artemije has demanded that he be reinstated as the Kosovo eparch, warning that he would otherwise start a 'new church,' the daily Blic said Friday........

Belgrade - The disgraced Serbian Orthodox Bishop Artemije has demanded that he be reinstated as the Kosovo eparch, warning that he would otherwise start a 'new church,' the daily Blic said Friday........

This clearly is not as black and white as the article purports. Serbs are calling it a hoax, perpetrated by the source article from "Blic", a newspaper that has been 'privatised' and owned by a German conglomerate - with Roman Catholic roots. Other media just picked it up and republished it uncritically.

I myself find it impossible to believe that a disciple of Saint Justin would threaten to split the Serbian Church.

We need to locate some information to share in English, and surely Bishop Artemije will issue his own statement.

This clearly is not as black and white as the article purports. Serbs are calling it a hoax, perpetrated by the source article from "Blic", a newspaper that has been 'privatised' and owned by a German conglomerate - with Roman Catholic roots. Other media just picked it up and republished it uncritically.

:lol Those Roman Catholics and their tabloid and women's magazines! I do not like tabloids but blaming the Roman Catholics for this story is paranoia. I think that you in your admiration of St.Thomas should recollect his theory of knowledge. In this theory everything has a form, matter, reason and aim. Now, ask yourself, why would Roman Catholics use a tabloid to create a schism in the SOC? What utility is gained by the Catholics in breaking up the SOC?

I look at the history of how the Catholics have tried to destroy many of the Orthodox Churches over the last 500 years, by the creation of pseudo Churches which attempt to be imitations of our own. The utility seems clear to the Catholics. "Divide and conquer" ~ an old Roman maxim.

I look at the history of how the Catholics have tried to destroy many of the Orthodox Churches over the last 500 years, by the creation of pseudo Churches which attempt to be imitations of our own. The utility seems clear to the Catholics. "Divide and conquer" ~ an old Roman maxim.

To tell you the truth, the only Greek Catholic Church which I have knowledge about is the Ukrainian and Byelarusin ones. From what I know, it is not an invention of history that the majority of Eastern Christians within the Polish Crown and the Grand Duchy of Lithuania choose the Unia. The fact that historians here tend to not study the reality but the ideas created in belle lettres is a fact. Ukrainians fought the Cossacks, to defend their religious freedom against the Moskals and Turks. In the 1600's and 1700's, for many if not most of the Ukrainians there was no alternative to being under the Polish Crown and Greek Catholic. It was the natural self-defense mechanism against the Muscovite aggression. You have to put yourself into the situation of the Ukrainian people at that point of history. Not the valiant Cossacks, nor the Piotr Mohylas but the simple Ukrainians who were farmers, craftsmen and traders. For their own safety, they choose the Polish Crown as their sovereign and they protected it to their deaths. They were fully Ukrainian, Rusin, they professed the Eastern Faith and did not see anything wrong in the Roman Catholic Church. The Muscovites destroyed the economic success and prosperity which had been the reason Poles wanted to move their. They made the Ukrainian plain into a backward province of the Eurasian empire.

The myth of the Ukrainians being exclusively Cossacks and Poles being Ksiondzi is a lie. The model of fighting warrior is an easier one to sell to the masses which prefer sensations to fact, then to write that in reality, it was different.Another myth is that the Poles are szlachta, gentry and Ukrainians,serfs. I kind of feel sorry for the Ukrainians in Eastern Galicja who had to suffer under the retrograde polonised ruthenian nobility which ruled there. In Western Galicja, during Austrian rule, my ancestors murdered out the majority of the nobility, even though we all spoke the same language and professed the same RC faith.

To tell you the truth, the only Greek Catholic Church which I have knowledge about is the Ukrainian and Byelarusin ones. From what I know, it is not an invention of history that the majority of Eastern Christians within the Polish Crown and the Grand Duchy of Lithuania choose the Unia.

So you know bad. It were Hierarchs, who choose the Union. The laity opposed. Even your historian Zbigniew Wójcik described it as "then were Hierarchs without the flock and the flock without the Hierarchs".

To tell you the truth, the only Greek Catholic Church which I have knowledge about is the Ukrainian and Byelarusin ones. From what I know, it is not an invention of history that the majority of Eastern Christians within the Polish Crown and the Grand Duchy of Lithuania choose the Unia.

So you know bad. It were Hierarchs, who choose the Union. The laity opposed. Even your historian Zbigniew Wójcik described it as "then were Hierarchs without the flock and the flock without the Hierarchs".

Russian Imperialist myth - myth in the negative sense of the word, not the positiveDenying the Unia - denying the Ukrainian and Belarussian right to statehood denotes an acceptation of the Muscovite Imperial Myth The Greek Catholic Church has preserved the Ukrainian identity, that is undeniable.

I do not understand what you understand by "your historian Zb. Wójcik". I do not possess any historians, what is the logic behind the possessive and a historian? Translated into Polish, I feel that you are blinding a wall of distrust between yourself and myself. We are brothers of the same blood and the same soil and sons of the same God, I view no need for enmity between us.

To tell you the truth, the only Greek Catholic Church which I have knowledge about is the Ukrainian and Byelarusin ones. From what I know, it is not an invention of history that the majority of Eastern Christians within the Polish Crown and the Grand Duchy of Lithuania choose the Unia.

The formation of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church Church is nothing to brag about!

===============

The Orthodox Church In The History Of Russia - by * Professor Dimitry Pospielovsky

(*) Dimitry Pospielovsky is Professor Emeritus of History at the University of Western Ontario. He is the author of The Russian Church Under The Soviet Regime, 1917-1982v (SVS Press, 1984) and is one of the foremost authorities on Russian Church History.

Page 93

The laity, the parish clergy, and particularly the brotherhoods refused to accept the union with Rome. The protest movement developed and spread quickly, joined at first by a single bishop, Gideon (Bolodan) of Lvov. The Polish King gave in to these pressures and authorized the convening of a local council of those bishops, clergy and laity of the Roman and Greek Church who accepted the papacy --i.e. those who did not accept the Unia were not invited.

The Council met in the city of Brest on October 6, 1596. In order to prevent a parallel Orthodox council in any of the numerious Orthodox Churches in the city, the now Uniate Metropolitan of Kiev sealed all Orthodox Churches on the day before the Council was to begin, except for the cathedral where the Council was to take place. The Orthodox, nevertheless, converged on Brest as well, with prince Ostrozhskii and his private army at the head. Failing to find an open church, and after waiting in vain for an invitation from the Uniates, they accepted an offer of a Protestant church school for a separate Orthodox Council. The Uniate Council passed a resolution excommunicating all the Orthodox clergy and laity participating in the Orthodox Council. The Orthodox in turn suspended all the clergy and lay participants in the Uniate Council and addressed a petition to the King, asking him to deprive "the traitors" of their dioceses and parishes. But the Polish King decided otherwise: his edict of October 15, LEGALIZED ONLY THOSE BYZANTINE RITE CHRISTIANS WHO JOINED THE UNIA; IT DECREED THE ORTHODOX CHURCH NULL AND VOID AND ALL ITS CLERGY EXCOMMUNICATED; WHILE CONTINUING MEMBERSHIP IN THE ORTHODOX CHURCH WAS DECLARED TO BE AN ACT OF TREASON AGAINST THE STATE.Page 96

The Polish government could ill afford continuous persecutions of the Orthodox. A war with Turkey loomed on the horizon, and in 1621 the Cossacks presented an ultimatum to the Polish Crown, stating that unless all persecutions of the Orthodox Church ceased, they would refuse to fight the Turks. In response, the 1623 Sejm declared toleration of the Orthodox Church and permitted the legitimization of Orthodox bishops and the restoration of their dioceses.

========

But the joy of the Orthodox was short-lived. The legalization of the Orthodox Church resulted in mass return to Orthodoxy especially in Eastern Belorussia. This resulted in mass attacks on Orthodox households and Churches led by bishop Josaphat (Kuntsevish). The citizens revolted which resulted in Josaphat's death.

Roman Catholic revenge was immediate and brutal. All Orthodox Churches were once again confiscated or closed. Everywhere in the commonwealth the Orthodox lost the right not only to build but to repair churches; Pope Urban VII proclaimed that any Roman Catholic who dared to oppose the use of the sword against the Orthodox would be excommunicated.=======

If you want to mix religion and politics we Orthodox can reply using the same tactics.

I have already mentioned this. The noble Cossack propaganda will not convince me or any sane thinking person. Perhaps if you are some type of idealist, who believes that ideas create reality not that reality creates ideas. Myths are essential for the creation of a national ethos. Every nation has its myths but they are the reaffirmation of ideals which we have lost or want to attain. I do not accept any of the premises of professor Dimitry Pospielovsky.

Most Russian historians show a general ignorance of the internal workings of the Polish Crown in the First Commonwealth (I Rzeczpospolita) and our general mentality. In Russia, since Ekaterina the Great, all history has served ideology. I like how prof.Pospielovsky transposes the modern concept of "gouvernment" to the First Commonwealth. I think that the reason most historians who write in English about the I Commonwealth, point to the generally anarchistic nature of Polish politics and the powerlessness of the King. Any Polish historian will tell you that the King gave out many decrees but the majority were never implemented. It was not uncommon for even the Sejm (Parliament) to declare a statute and to have it not reaffirmed by the local parliaments of the voivodships(sejmiki). An objective Russian historian would be placed in the psihushka or be a dissident persecuted by the Putinist regime. The majority of Russian emigrants view Russia with awe, yet they do not view anything wrong in the oppression of minorities and the nonrecognition of separate cultural, ethnic identities such as the Belarusian and Ukrainian ones. The pan-Slavist note of the Russian nationalist ideology, assumes that all Slavs are the servants of the Russian nation and thus, they should accept the "cultural superiority" of the Russians and accept their culture as their own. This Panslavist doctrine is easy to refute, because everyone knows that a Pole and Serb are not Russian. Although the Russian ideology views these separate, independent Slavic cultures as inferior, worthless creations which should be done away with. The Russian schemes to unite the South Slavs, to expand their sphere of influence and make all of these Central European states into their vassals, which will blindly accept the Russian culture and reject their own traditions, has proved insufficient. Therefore, the Russian ideology, the history which it creates to back itself up, is BANKRUPT.

I like Orthodoc's threat to Roman Catholics at the end. Truly Christian..